The Cactus League: A Novel

By Emily Nemens

Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR and Lit Hub. A Los Angeles Times Bestseller. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"In The Cactus League [Emily Nemens] provides her readers with what amounts to a miniature, self-enclosed world that is funny and poignant and lovingly observed." --Charles McGrath, The New York Times Book Review

An explosive, character-driven odyssey through the world of baseball

Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why—as they hide secrets of their own.

Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It’s a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction.

Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball’s inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Feb 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9780374720490

Emily Nemens

Emily Nemens is the editor of The Paris Review. She was previously the coeditor of The Southern Review. Her work has been published in Esquire, n+1, The Gettysburg Review, Hobart, and elsewhere.

Book preview

FIRST

Welcome to Salt River Fields, the newest spring training facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. Turn east off of Pima, drive down the fresh boulevard, Lions Way. You’re flanked by parking lots so new they still smell like tar, their white hatching wet: ample parking for the anticipated crowds, already sold out for opening day. Note the median’s plantings: environmentally sustainable xeriscape. Of course, this is 2011, and the club cares about our natural resources, is mindful of the perpetual drought in Phoenix metro. A few Christmas cacti bloom, despite it being February.

And here, at the terminus of the boulevard, the centerpiece of the multi-field complex: the twelve-thousand-seat stadium that will be the new springtime home of your Los Angeles Lions. Take it all in—the crisp-chalked diamond, the ruddy arc of infield, the bright checkerboard of the outfield. It’s not easy to grow grass like that in the desert—I offer a hat tip to the grounds crew. And see out past the warning track and fence? There’s the shock-green tilt of a well-watered general-admission lawn. Farther still, on the horizon: a ridge of mountains, jutting into the blue like the teeth of some mile-high rusted saw.

Take note of the architecture, too: the exposed steel beams and brick, a slate-gray cantilevered canopy over a sunken seating bowl, the polished concrete rotunda and concourse. A classic-looking stadium. Timeless in design, some might say, even if it’s anything but. Nothing is static, not the bluegrass-ryegrass blend growing out there, not the architecture, not the angle of the sun hitting the seats. And not a man’s career, especially not a ballplayer the first weeks of spring. His batting average, his ambition, his hopes: all is in flux. I’m looking toward Lions left fielder Jason Goodyear as I write this, coming off a Gold Glove and a close second place in American League MVP voting, coming off a possible divorce and a lonely drive across the desert in his busted old Jeep. (Doesn’t Cadillac give you a car if you do that many ads?) But that feeling of uncertainty isn’t reserved for All-Stars and the freshly dumped; it could apply to any player on the squad, any coach on the bench, any man in the executive suite, any fan in the stands. I’m looking at his entourage: his agent, Herb Allison, his maybe-wife, Liana, his favorite minor league batting coach, and the devotees who would give an eye tooth just to be near him. It’s all up in the air.

Here’s the thing about baseball, and all else: everything changes. Whether it’s the slow creep of glaciers dripping toward the sea, or the steady piling up of cut stones, rock upon rock until the wall reaches chest high, nothing is still. Sometimes change comes as quick and catastrophic as a line drive—hear the crack of wood displacing a sphere of leather, yarn, rubber, and cork; watch how it pushes the ball flat and then, just as quickly, forward. The action springs the left fielder from his squat, and the man’s metal spikes tear into the turf, kicking up tiny wedges of grass, sending them toward the sky.

Sure, I followed I-10 across the desert to write the story of one remarkable man, but baseball’s not that kind of game. It’s too long and complicated to say, He did this, he said that, then this happened. That sufficed when I was first working the beat, still wet behind the ears and liable to get lost on my way to the press room. Back then, it was Get the score, get the quote, add a little color, and file—162 times a year. (More if you were lucky and your team took any sort of postseason run. September, October, that was the only time the rest of the newsroom took us serious. And no editor was ponying up for spring ball—that’s what the wires were for.) I was such a kid, spooked by his own damn shadow, downright fearful of asking any kind of tough question, something that might be construed as disagreeable. Now, I’m no muckraker, and not setting out to take down a great man, but in this life things are complex, some questions are hard, and that’s why I drove to Arizona in the first place.

It’s not that those early reports of mine were totally off the mark. Ask any fan, and she’ll tell you there’s something satisfyingly linear about baseball: three strikes, three outs. Four bases, nine innings. A lineup, for chrissake—you don’t need to be an etymologist to see the meaning in that. But at the same time as that steady progression of three up, three down, then the next, then the next, it’s going around and around, cycling through the order, running around the bases. Things get parabolic. There’s the arc of up and down through the organization, from Single-A Carolina to the big time in Culver City, the tight arc of an infield-fly out and the majestic one of a game-winning homer. Charting the line gets mighty complicated: there are so many men playing together, so many more behind the scenes, coaching and cajoling and sometimes sabotaging the game’s progress, pulling the line until it goes bonkers, more like a dance chart than any sort of arrow.

None of that nuance goes onto the score sheet, none of it gets printed in the next morning’s recap. The paper’s box scores, like my early reports, don’t hardly scratch the surface of what happened: there are so many stories behind that neat summary. Triumphs, failures, vindications, yes. But just as many stories end not with out three but out maybe—fly balls that never do fall, men who never stop running ’round the bags.

So to tell Jason Goodyear’s story will take a while, require not just Jason but a whole web of people who are touched by him, and a few who long to touch him, too. I know it sounds crazy, but when it gets down to telling the story of the league’s best outfielder, as much will happen in parking lots as on the field, as much in backyards as in deep left. So no, it’s not as easy as, He did this, he said that, then this happened. It’s more, He did this, he said that, and then the whole world unfurled.

It’s how things go in baseball; after decades on this beat I should know. And so, I’d encourage you to find your seat, settle in, and get ready for a long game.

WWJDD

Audrey and Michael Taylor have been traveling all day, since before the sun rose on their daughter’s snowed-over Milwaukee suburb. Now, late afternoon, Michael directs the cabbie from Sky Harbor and Phoenix’s loop freeway into Scottsdale, toward their development—a square mile of adobe-clad ranchers—and finally, down their street.

Theirs is halfway down the block on the left. It’s that one, he says, his wrinkled finger jutting into the front of the cab, indicating a house that’s so orange it’s nearly pink. The salmon.

He tips the driver well—Michael always tips well; it is part of what he considers his character—and the young man happily unloads the Taylors’ coffin-size suitcases onto the curb. Forty-nine pounds each: the Taylors have been doing their off-season circuit for so long Audrey knows exactly which sundresses and sweaters to include, every wool blazer and light jacket and pair of slacks Mikey will need for Thanksgiving in Chicago, Christmas in Virginia, the month of January with Katie, their youngest, and her four kids in Wisconsin. And now, February and March in Arizona, where the desert can swing from the thirties at night to the nineties at noon.

The lawn looks dried out—the timer on the sprinkler must’ve malfunctioned, Michael thinks. He’s bothered by this; he prides himself on his perfect little patch of bluegrass-ryegrass. The neighbors appreciate it, too—Mr. Baseball knows his grass.

How’s that for peculiar? Michael says to himself as he jiggles the doorknob. He tries the key again, no luck. He checks the others on the ring—stadium entrance, supply room, and office (all to the old stadium—was he supposed to turn those in? he forgot to, in any case); Scottsdale safe deposit; spare set to Betty and Dave’s (those he definitely should return); the Camry; and the new, beloved Cadillac. He cannot help letting his thumb linger on that smooth black pebble, its silver shield a pleasing ridge under his thumb. He tries the house key twice more before stalking past the picture window to the side gate. There is a hide-a-key under the back mat; he’ll get in that way.

What’s going on, honey? Audrey missed his defeat at the front; she had her nose in her phone, texting one kid or another. Did you forget your keys?

No, Aud—my God! Michael bellows. The gate, now open, reveals a backyard in disarray—trash is skewered on the spines of their saguaro, and it looks like someone played whack-a-mole with their potted plants. A tower of crushed beer cans is piled on the patio table, and pizza boxes, stacked like so many beach towels, sit next to the Taylors’ small in-ground pool. The pool’s water is murky, with strange, bright blooms skimming the surface.

The cardboard panel in the back door’s French window leers at him like a smile’s missing tooth. Michael punches the cardboard out, reaches down, and opens the latch from the inside. The alarm system should trigger, but it doesn’t. Instead, he hears the sound of feet on gravel and Audrey’s gasp. He barks, Now just hang on, Audrey. His wife, fretting her hands by the patio furniture, nods like a bobblehead. I’ll take care of this.

---

When Michael bought their Arizona house, brand-new in 1971, guys on the team thought he was crazy. But Michael thought they were crazy not to buy. Why spend their meal money on six weeks of hotels every spring when they could be putting their stipend toward a mortgage? Scottsdale wasn’t quite tumbleweed-down-Main-Street back then, but it was a lot different. Small, for one. It stopped around Indian Bend, mostly just cacti and the old army airport past that, the ghost of Frank Lloyd Wright hanging out on some distant hill. Other players rented convertibles and bought clothes that impressed only whoever else was eating late-night at the Pink Pony; Michael paid down his banknote. A career in baseball, or at least one going the way he had imagined, was a looming unknown, but some things you could count on. By thirty, he and Audrey already had their retirement home. When it was clear his shot at the majors was done, that thrift felt more important than ever.

And while their official residence is Salt Lake City, home of the Stallions, the Lions’ Triple-A affiliate, the Arizona house is their favorite stop on the yearlong, countrywide circuit. These days, now that all the kids are out and mostly on their own, Michael and Audrey spend eight weeks in Scottsdale every spring and fall. It is well lived in, and well loved, but not any sort of run-down—Michael makes sure of that, always sprucing up the yard and keeping the paint fresh. There is something very cathartic about everything being in its right place, especially after so many months on the road.

---

The first thing to hit him is the stench of decay, a garbage smell, but he also detects the acrid aroma of something not meant to burn having been burned. It is cool—downright cold—the thermostat doing its best to keep the house at sixty against an eighty-five-degree sun. Michael shivers.

Anybody home? he calls. It sounds ridiculous, he thinks, yelling out as if he were some overcurious neighbor. Like this isn’t his own home. But Michael can’t think what else to say, what else to do. So he calls out again, and then he listens.

No answer.

He surveys the kitchen. Wadded-up Pop-Tart wrappers spill across the counter, dishes jam the sink, and then his eyes go to a dark, sticky-looking stain on the floor. Blood, Michael thinks, and his breath pulls up short. Only when he kneels down and sees the overturned bottle of Hershey’s syrup wedged underneath the fridge is he able to exhale. A trail of tiny ants march from the spill to some unknown world behind the cabinets.

The security system, once mounted next to the thermostat, is now smashed plastic and a knot of clipped wires. The dead bolts in the front and back have been replaced with some cheapo set, the locks sitting loose in their casings. One mystery solved.

Michael pops out the back door. Audrey is gingerly gathering takeout containers and depositing them into the trash. Leave it be, Audrey. Those are filthy.

She looks up. How is it in there?

Not good, he says with a grimace.

He does a quick survey of the dining room. At some point, a meal had been set for four, premade lasagna by the looks of the caked tinfoil casserole. The Taylors’ nice china, stained orange with grease, is spread across the table, crusted and crumbed. He inspects the sideboard, the small liquor cabinet and wine rack atop it. Their visitors drank every ounce in the cabinet and every bottle in the rack, including a 1999 Mouton Rothschild Bordeaux Michael was saving for their fiftieth. Those shits, he mutters.

In the girls’ room—now fitted with two sets of bunk beds, for when the grandkids visit—all four beds have been slept in, none of them made. Something squirreled in the corner catches his eye. An assortment of Michael’s sports memorabilia has been gathered from different parts of the house and deposited, improbably, here. The ball from his first home run. His collection of cards, all the way back to his squinty rookie year. He’d been handsome in 1965, even if the TOPPS photographer had surprised him, asked him to turn around and smile right into the sun. Michael didn’t know he could ask for a redo, not until the team set came in and the whole clubhouse laughed at his squished-up mug. He slips the card into his shirt pocket. Also in the pile: a framed clipping from 1974, that lucky moment when they made it all the way to the World Series, and he was the Lions’ backup left fielder. No ring, though—they’d lost in five to Saint Louis. His retired gloves, their leather gone soft and then stiff again. Ball caps from every level of the organization: Carolina, Kansas, Salt Lake. The medallion the Lions organization gave him for forty years with the club—for those, major or minor don’t matter, nor do player or coach. It is about being loyal—which he is, faithful as a border collie. If only the feeling were mutual. The last time he encountered Stephen Smith, the head of the ownership group, the man couldn’t be bothered to hide his sneer, making a face like Michael were a stain he’d have to scrub out.

In the master bedroom, the bed is unmade, the sheets strewn like something violent happened. He stands in the threshold, listening to the ticking of a quiet house, wanting and not wanting to hear something more. As he waits, he can feel his blood pressure going up. He has meds for it, and he takes them dutifully every morning. But a tiny pill can do only so much when someone’s been living in, and messing up, your home.

Those little white pills—he charges into the master bath and throws open the cabinet. He shakes one bottle after another, hoping for a rattle. They ate everything but the stool softener. No respect, he says to himself.

Closing the cabinet, Michael catches his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Blue eyes rimmed pink, jowly, a carbuncly nose that keeps getting bigger, his hair bright white—he sees very little of that young man from the TOPPS card staring back at him. He’d been handsome, he’d been strong. He looks down at his wrist, the threaded bracelet embroidered with the letters W-W-J-D-D. What would Joe DiMaggio do?

He wouldn’t blow his fucking cool, Michael reminds himself. So he ignores the ringed tub and the towels wadded on the floor. He steps back into the bedroom and closes the bathroom door so hard the whole room shudders. The pictures of his kids and grandkids, the black-and-white wedding photos of his folks and Audrey’s had been knocked askance anyway.

WWJDD. Audrey, he calls down the dim corridor, I’m coming.

---

Audrey is in the kitchen. They melted plastic onto the range, she says, picking at the stove’s coils with a polished nail. She gives herself a manicure every Thursday, the same color of pale pink for the past twenty-two years. When a fleck of the color breaks off and skips across the range, she makes a concerned face but keeps going.

And look. She holds up a crystal pitcher, a wedding gift from his long-deceased grandmother. It’s chipped. And they cracked the Mr. Coffee. She points to the carafe, and her eyes run over the counter. Michael watches them skim, skitter, and jump.

What? What is it? Michael says.

Oh, it’s … nothing, Audrey says, in a way that, Michael knows, after forty-eight years of matrimony, means it absolutely is something. Her eyes dart again, there and back.

What? Tell me. His voice is stern, but then he sees what her eyes are unable to avoid: the turned walnut bowl that had previously held their spare keys. Now, save for some gum wrappers, a withered apple, and an oozing brown banana, it is empty.

He feels a curse rising from the grumbling pit of his belly. Of course Michael left a spare key to the Cadillac sitting in the bowl. It’s his house, for fuck’s sake, and you leave your keys, to your car that is parked in your garage, attached to your house, in your fucking fruit bowl. He storms across the kitchen, throws open the door to the garage, and faces a big, empty space where his new car had been.

GODDAMN IT!

He punches a button, and the garage door begins its creaking ascent. With the light of the afternoon streaming in, he can see into the shadows on the far side of the garage. They also took Audrey’s car, an old Camry with a hundred thousand miles and a fritzy air conditioner. Tools gone, lawn mower gone. Michael kicks a bag of mulch because he has to kick something. He kicks it again, the bag giving way like someone’s soft middle. Then he stomps back into the kitchen and dials the police.

---

It’s not the Johnstons’ fault, he’d never say that. But next-door neighbors Betty and Dave Johnston always did look in on the place when the Taylors were away, and after Betty’s fall … well. Audrey and Michael sent flowers to Betty’s hospital room, and when Dave called to thank them, Michael steered conversation toward their street—he wanted to make sure they’d still be checking in. That’s when Dave confessed they’d not be coming around. They were moving into one of those retirement developments. Michael didn’t know what to say to that. The idea of giving up so much of one’s life—possessions, property, even the ability to set one’s own damn dinnertime—was terrifying. You sure about this? he asked Dave. His neighbor replied that the house was already listed, and he’d hired some college kids to pack up the place.

So Dave and Betty weren’t there to hear the home alarm wail or notice when it unceremoniously stopped. They didn’t see the perps coming and going, wreaking havoc in the pool. But Michael had to admit that things started going south well before Betty’s fall. With the recession came a wave of bad mortgages, homeowners owing more than their properties’ worth. Foreclosures. Some people walked away. The house on the other side of them had been empty for a year, nominally on sale but even the broker had stopped coming around. Last spring, not in their development, but not too far away, either, he’d seen a row of houses that had gone to seed: boarded up, gap-toothed with broken windows, pocked with orange eviction notices. Was that coming for them? Michael didn’t know; he sure as shit hoped not. Theirs had been a nice neighborhood—kids biking in the streets and splashing in pools. Michael never sees children playing anymore.

Long story short, the Johnstons sold quick, and for a too-low price, to some developer buying up lots like they were Monopoly houses—he had three on their block, four on the next. Dave had heard the guy was fixing to raze the whole neighborhood, but when Michael pressed, Dave changed the subject.

---

Michael and Audrey wait on the dead grass, holding hands. Michael hopes that by squeezing Audrey’s she can get his message: Hang on, sweetheart. We’ll be okay. The responding officer doesn’t use a siren, but the lights on his squad car flash red and blue. Officer Miller looks like he might’ve played high school football thirty years back. Michael gives him the short version of their rude welcome, and Miller stomps inside. He comes back out in what feels like ninety seconds and tells them they are lucky to still have their plumbing, which strikes Michael as a pretty rotten thing to say.

The lights strobe, red and blue. Could you turn that off? Audrey finally asks, her voice sounding pinched. She closes her eyes and squishes up her face like she does when a migraine’s coming. Michael squeezes her hand again: I’ll take care of everything. And this time, he feels her press back, her thumb running over the callus at the base of his palm, pulling along the rim of his embroidered bracelet. Please, hers says.

What would Joe DiMaggio do? Take care of fucking business.

Miller continues without enthusiasm. It could be anyone: your typical drugged-out vagrant, but maybe also a family down on its luck, a vet who’s a little out of sorts, some dumb kids from the university. You said there was booze in the house. Any drugs?

What? Michael’s mind flashes to the empty vials in the bathroom, pain pills left over from the last time he threw out his back. Those don’t count. No. Nothing.

So then how do you spot a squatter nowadays? Audrey asks.

Yeah, Michael says. From what you’re saying, it’s not like they’re hoboes trailing a swarm of flies.

Miller sniffs. They’re not. And you don’t. Y’all have homeowner’s insurance? the officer says, capping his pen.

Michael’s nod feels more like a shrug. Sure.

Get ready for a fight. They’ll nickel-and-dime you all the way to Kalamazoo. Document everything. Keep your receipts, take photos. Miller hands Michael a card. Call the station if you folks need anything. We’ll keep an eye out for the cars. You said the Cadillac was—

Ebony. With a little tint of navy blue.

That some sort of black?

Right. And a sky-blue Toyota Camry, nineteen ninety—

Seven. Audrey remembers. Of course she does.

After the patrol car leaves, Audrey and Michael stand there for a minute, just holding hands and blinking at the house. Then Michael heads for the curb—their suitcases haven’t budged since the Taylors first arrived, when the cabbie plopped them down with such cheeriness. Audrey stops him, her hand wrapping around his arm with a surprisingly strong grip.

I don’t feel safe here, Mikey. Most days, his wife doesn’t look a day over fifty-five, big brown eyes and a cute nose and a smile that hardly sags. Not plastic surgery, just good genes, a little hair dye, and lots of moisturizer. But at that moment, her hair mussed out from its precise bun, her face damp from the heat and showing every one of its wrinkles, she looks frail. Like an old lady. I don’t want to stay here.

As much as it kills him to hear that, Michael can’t blame her. Sure. Right. So he walks back into the stinking kitchen and calls another taxi.

---

Everyone thinks ballplayers are made of money, but the big salaries—like that ten-year, $150 million contract Jason Goodyear bagged, the biggest in franchise history—are a relatively recent development. Really, everything changed with free agency and the ascension of the mega-agent, guys like Herb Allison, who could bark and bite and get teams to bid against one another until they pushed salaries into nine figures. Even seven figures sounds nice to Michael. Hell, he would gladly take six. As a minor league batting coach he makes about $68,000 a

Reviews for The Cactus League

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set in 2011 in Scottsdale, Arizona, the fictional Los Angeles Lions baseball team is about to embark on Spring Training at the (real) Cactus League baseball park, Salt River Fields. The book is a series of interrelated short stories about an owner, a manager, coaches, players, rookies, wives, agents, hangers on, wannabe girlfriends, and even the stadium’s organist. The primary focus is All-Star center fielder Jason Goodyear, a multimillionaire player who is now facing a divorce and gambling debts.

I recently went on a trip to the Phoenix area to attend Spring Training games, so it seemed like a good time to read this book. I cannot say it is particularly realistic since it assumes the players are in the lineup the entire game, playing as they do in the regular season, which does not generally happen, but it is an entertaining story. The author throws in local color, using real restaurants, museums, casinos, and Indian tribal history.

[rosalita_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Spring training is a time of hope and renewal in baseball, when fans of even the most inept teams allow themselves to dream that this might, at long last, be The Year. It’s no less so for the players themselves, and the other people whose lives revolve in and around the game.Emily Nemens’ The Cactus League (2020) plays upon some classic themes of a baseball novel—the ways off-field struggles translate into on-field performance, the repercussions of high expectations and celebrity, the inevitable physical decline and its accompanying mental rollercoaster. But she shines her spotlight into corners of the game rarely explored by writers in this genre, and that makes for compelling reading beyond the usual audience of sports fans.The Cactus League is structured like a baseball game, in nine “innings” that are not so much chapters in a seamless chronological narrative as they are interconnected stories, told from the viewpoint of different characters. Events are sometimes recounted more than once, from different points of view, and each re-telling adds depth to our understanding of what happened. Each chapter/inning opens with ruminations (seemingly excerpts from an unpublished memoir) by an old sportswriter who was involuntarily retired. Like a good leadoff hitter, the old sportswriter sets the table at the start of each inning. He blends the history of Arizona from before the Ice Age and human settlers with what’s happening on and off the field in today’s desert environment, where the Los Angeles Lions are working themselves into shape to make a run at the World Series. Each excerpt builds upon the previous to make it clear that Lions star outfielder Jason Goodyear is the sun around which the satellite characters in each subsequent narrative revolve. Other characters include a former big league hitting coach whose career trajectory is on the downhill side, former wife of a professional ballplayer and current groupie, who loves the game of baseball even more than the men she collects each spring, the personal assistant to Jason Goodyear’s agent, who tasks her with the job of keeping an eye on his prime client, the black partial owner of the Lions who sees himself as a mentor to up-and-coming black players, a pitcher trying to work his way back from arm surgery, a hotshot rookie from whom too much is expected in his first spring training, the wives and girlfriends of Lions players who are expected to put their own lives on hold so their men can focus all their attention on baseball, and the aging stadium organist whose own career never got out of the minor leagues. Can the agent save his most famous client from himself? Can the groupie find someone to save her from a lifestyle that she’s aging out of? Can the players on the edge of reaching the next level save their careers? Do some people have to be sacrificed so that others can realize their dreams? In baseball as in life there are only winners and losers. The trick is not to get caught on the wrong side of that line.